Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
That's what Larry Page said on Google's earnings call, referring to the conjunction of mobile and the cloud. Well, let's chart it then! We need to be thinking about an Internet where 90% of our traffic goes to 70 destinations within 40 miles of us.
EU operators are considering joining up to create a pan-European network to reduce competitive overbuild and cost. This might lower costs and focus operators on higher-level, more interesting services.
Many enterprises view high-speed broadband connections as ubiquitous. Yet in about 20 percent of the country, businesses and their employees do not have access to even DSL connections. This shortcoming diminishes enterprises' ability to support their employees.
Congress is considering a bill to extend a moratorium on Internet regulation changes for two years. But with issues like service quality, cloud performance, and privacy looming, we risk contaminating the Internet with fraud.
The risk of the ITU taking over the Internet is overblown. First, it's almost certain its goals are simply to create orderly interconnect and settlement. Second, how good a job has ICANN done anyway? If we don't like international control we should clean up our own processes in both governance and interconnect!
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
The growth of big-data, the BYOD phenomenon, and the popularity of social media all present challenges to the notion of defending the security perimeter.
Businesses helped neighbors with Internet access and mobile device charge-ups during Sandra. Following that example, enterprises should consider preparing Internet disaster plans to help the public during disasters.
Women are less comfortable using videoconferencing in the workplace than men. That was one of the findings in a recent survey about how employees view and use videoconferencing systems.
Internet evolution has been stagnating both conceptually and in business model terms, and what is likely to bring us out of that is the concept of software-defined networking, not as it is today but in the form it will become.
Google's Knowledge Graph concept of returning the "right answer" might change the Internet if it becomes a common practice, but it could also contaminate the answers with commericalism or hurt Google's own business. Can they navigate these choices?
The recent launch of the EchoStar XVII satellite has the potential to increase broadband satellite communications' top speed from megabits to gigabits of bandwidth. Hughes Network Systems plans to test its high-speed satellite broadband services this summer and roll them out this fall.
Yahoo's new CEO can't go back to what Yahoo was; that's how it got to what it is! Instead she has to look at something that Yahoo has always rejected, which is a relationship with the telcos and cablecos. They'd love a partner in creating service applications.
Guess who wants to be a streaming video player? The telcos! And they're taking control of their own destiny by launching their own projects or investing in startups, rather than going with vendor solutions.
Telcos and cable companies seem to be engaging in a speed war, pushing access up to 300Mbit/s. Does this mean our Internet is getting better? No, it means that the operators are thinking of ways to use the capacity outside the Internet.
Verizon's one-data-plan-for-all-devices could revolutionize mobile data by making it practical to have multiple devices share a plan, and thus encourage users to cellular-equip all their portable appliances.
With the advent of low-cost Web cameras and broadband network connections, home security systems have become a hot business. In addition to traditional security suppliers, like ADT, the market is attracting telcos, cable companies, and energy providers, thereby creating an area of increasing competition.
Watching TV is not healthy for you, according to conventional wisdom. Well, that may soon change. Comcast and United Healthcare are now delivering diabetes prevention videos on-demand to high-risk patients. The partnership illustrates how healthcare may be delivered in the future.
Huawei has become a key supplier of networking equipment to telcos. The company is now gunning for enterprises and may represent the most significant threat to Cisco since its inception. Huawei has set a goal of $15 billion in enterprise equipment sales by 2015.
After a long run of significant growth, cellphone sales dipped by more than 1 percent this quarter, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The change will have a significant impact on vendors, such as Nokia and RIM, who have struggled recently.
Why are we hearing so much about WiFi roaming when what most users say they want is simply automatic registration and re-registration when they move into a hotspot? It may be because carriers want tablets to be made cellular-ready, to make it easier for someone to move from WiFi-only to 3G/4G.
The amount of data traffic running over US wireless networks grew 123 percent from 2010 (388 billion MB) to 2011 (866.7 billion MB), according to the CTIA. Carriers have tried to prepare for the change by moving from 3G to 4G networks. But with data rates increasing so rapidly, will there be enough bandwidth to meet future demand? Doubtful!
There are reports out there that say LTE providers want to throttle their services to protect wireline broadband. This, with Verizon dropping naked DSL? This, with LTE requiring as much deep fiber as wireline? Think again!
Are you ready for your next videoconference? Do you remember the dial-in number? Do you wait on hold for one of the key speakers? LoopUp has found that meeting minutiae (calling the right number, seeing who is on the conference, making sure all the systems work) are taking up about 20 percent of the time on each call.
Cellphone suppliers are constantly on the lookout for ways to differentiate their wares. Nokia may be at the head of the pack when it comes to wearable devices. The company has been working on technology that notifies individuals when a call comes in by creating a tingling sensation… on their tattoos.
To date, smartphone apps have only been able to work with 50Meg chunks of information. Well, recent technical advances have been able to boost that number to 4Gbytes. Consequently, developers will be able to work with more complex data types. But will wireless networks be able to handle the additional traffic?
A combination of an announcement by DT and a Pew survey is showing us what the next-gen Internet may look like, and why. The demand for flexible services, created by rewired, iPhoned, social brains, combines with cloud and optical technology to create something totally new!
The AT&T notion of letting some apps "buy" the data for its users seems inconsistent with the neutrality principles designed to keep big sites from dominating the Internet. Is the principle wrong, or is AT&T's policy wrong? We need a consistent position here.
Nicole and Kim (and their respective accents) request things of Siri, the iPhone 4S virtual assistant, to see what she's capable of. The result? Not much.
Corporate email is a great natural time manager, a great way to communicate across time zones, and a natural way to keep records on ongoing projects and conversations. But there are limits to its benefits.
The drive to stream TV directly to HD sets, to tablets, or to PCs in the home may create a broader demand for streaming, and this could create a major new source of traffic pressure on mobile networks, mobile pricing, and mobile service policies.
Forget superFi. The real development in wireless is Florida-Fi! Bright House, a cable company in Florida, wants to wire the state for WiFi and help create a federation of cable players that could offer tablet owners a whole new way of getting online.
If RIM has fallen behind, and Microsoft was never there, smartphone-wise, who's keeping them in the game? The mobile operators! Why? Because mobile operators don't want a few giant handsets controlling their destiny.
Google Internet Evangelist Vinton G. Cerf is right to argue that the Internet is not a basic human right. (Though Kim knows he was the one to say it first…)
Hundreds of thousands of mobile apps have emerged in a short period of time – and some of these include violent and sexual content. Consequently, the CTIA, an industry consortium of carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, has begun outlining a rating system that will label video game content, in a manner similar to that for movies.
Verizon has made the Xbox into a basic set-top box, so does that mean streaming video will replace TV after all? That's complicated. It turns out there are three different video models and three different futures for them.
A Citigroup researcher says Amazon is developing its own cellular phone. Amazon, take heed: It's a tougher business to crack than selling the Kindle Fire.
Nokia's Phone 7 commitment gets all the news, but it may be Nokia's line of featurephones that will make the difference. Putting stuff in the cloud makes the handset cheaper and eases worries about data plan usage as well, making this ideal for emerging market opportunities and holdout buyers.
The increased competition between Microsoft/Skype and Google Voice may create a whole new kind of calling experience for us all, one that's both socially bound and much less expensive. We will need to watch for the opportunities it creates.
Skype recently acquired GroupMe, a startup developing tools to make mobile communications simpler. The move underscores dramatic changes in that market, ones that will change how executives communicate.
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has been removed, and the question is whether the company can succeed under ANY leadership. It has two problems: its Internet startup culture and its unwillingness to take advantage of potential partnerships with telcos and cable companies.
Google bid on spectrum once, but it can get into the cellular carrier business a cheaper way by becoming a mobile virtual network operator. Since Apple is looking at that approach, we may get our phone service from our handset vendors in the future.
I've got the solution to Microsoft's smartphone problem: Forget Phone 7, forget Nokia, forget smartphones! Instead, focus on making Windows 8 a killer in the tablet space.
Over 20 percent of Verizon's workforce is on strike, thanks to the company's efforts to make up for reduced wireline revenues by reducing the value of wireline union jobs. Given Verizon's current profitability, it's time for management to find a better solution.
While technically elegant, WiMax technology has had trouble gaining market traction, especially in the US. Sprint's recent decision to support LTE represents another blow to its emergence as a mainstream wireless technology.
Free wireless is like tap water in Europe and Asia. Why is the US so far behind? Because of a near-religious commitment to non-government interference in markets, America lacks basic wireless infrastructure and will pay the price competitively.
Maybe Google+ will be competitive and maybe it won't, but it's likely to introduce video calling and OTT communications as a replacement for standard telephony. There will be major consequences to this, and we don't have an FCC or political framework capable of coping.
Initiatives like Internet2 continue to advance rapid broadband in the US, but the country still lags behind others. It's time for industry to join government in investing to further innovation and economic growth.
Comcast's deal with Skype for on-TV videoconferencing seems illogical on its face: It encourages the worst kind of traffic for cable broadband providers. So could they have a deeper strategy to monetize this, one that might test neutrality rules yet again?
One ripple effect from the rise in tablet adoption is rising broadband usage. Tablet users are much more likely than laptop, smartphone, or netbook users to demand broadband connections. Carriers need to be prepared for the data deluge.
Apple is said to be preparing a new iPhone that's technically carrier-independent. Apple may split from carriers financially, too, by subsidizing iPhones and iPads with subscriptions to its impending cloud-based media service.
Everything about US broadband policy is inconsistent, deceitful, or both, and we're at risk of having our services get even worse relative to the rest of the world if we don't make people accountable for their data and their choices.
HP became the latest vendor to drop its hat in the broadband networking ring. The company has begun bundling network services with some of its laptops, but it seems like a weird strategy.
Skype's acquisition by Microsoft should speed up some long-needed security measures and help the company rise above the social networking risk level. Skype users faced an increasing onslaught of spammers and would-be fraudsters, while left with less-than-friendly means of setting privacy filters.
Microsoft's buy of Skype could revitalize Phone 7, give Microsoft a social, gaming, and collaborative strategy, and spell the end for old-fashioned telco voice. It will also certainly give Google a headache in its Voice, Chat, and even Android strategy!
If you want to flash your phone to make purchases, hope that the Telco Isis project succeeds. Telcos need to carry the ball on the low-margin part of the transaction handling or nobody will be able to make Near Field Communication work.
Congress isn't going to kill net neutrality, but we may face usage pricing or other changes. The best strategy for all would be to encourage ISPs to offer some of the services that OTT competitors now lead in, so they get a piece of the content pie.
AT&T is going to impose usage caps and extra charges, and it's pretty clear that video use and all-you-can-eat pricing aren't going together. We need to ask ourselves how we want to pay and what mechanism will be best for our online future.
We all express desire for fast broadband, but uptake of top-tier services is so small, and prices per bit so low, that it seems neither consumers nor providers actually want it. Maybe we need to rethink what we do with broadband and ease our expectations for speed.
Wireless operators are now looking to their next-gen 4G voice strategies. How they manage things like voice signaling, interconnect, and roaming could affect how open mobile broadband is in the future.
HP's WebOS device family can wirelessly link devices to share connections and information. This could be a step toward making the tablet a voice device, and a major blow to traditional telco voice services.
The explosive growth in Internet traffic is forcing ISPs to increase their access investments without generating new revenue. They'll need to either raise prices or make the OTT players like Google or Netflix pay.
In peer or mesh networks users are also "nodes," and maverick node behavior was at the root of both the China Internet routing flap and the Skype outage. Before we get into modern applications of mesh/peer networks we need to figure out how to prevent maverick behavior.
AT&T is buying spectrum from Qualcomm, and the fact that it's happening only now suggests that mobile services and profit models aren't as easy to predict as we thought.
The big cable companies and telcos are experimenting with new video business models, which may introduce some very interesting options for us over the next six months. Keep watching!
Customer interest in mobile video transmissions is growing. However, there is not enough bandwidth now to support rich exchanges – a shortcoming that could stymie movement to applications like mobile videoconferencing.
MySpace is reinventing itself by focusing on content, but it's too late, and other social networks should learn from its example by looking toward a telco payment model if they want to sustain user commitment and their own revenue.
Fox, as part of an ongoing dispute, recently blocked some Cablevision customers' access to some Web content. If this is a net neutrality violation we need to re-frame our whole notion of what neutrality is, and if it's not then we need to ask if our vision has any value at all.
There's Internet available everywhere, and mobile services, too, in a country where 97% of telecom is a government monopoly. Could we be on the wrong track with competition as the driver of telecom service superiority?
Because 25% to 45% of broadband cost is due to sales and marketing, we could reduce our broadband prices by eliminating advertising and promotional spending by providers.
Nielsen’s recent numbers on the increasing use of texting bode well for enterprise networks. Shunning the phone in favor of text messaging could mean reducing bandwidth.
By 2014, mobile devices will overtake laptops as the appliance of choice for consumers. But device makers still have some wishes to fulfill, including mobile app simplification and the ability to better perform word processing/spreadsheet functions.
Google's decision to link VoIP calling of PSTN numbers with Gmail, and to let Google Voice "call" Gmail VoIP clients, will devalue the PSTN and force telcos to fund unprofitable services or create their own VoIP transitions.
As the recent Google-Verizon agreement shows, the net neutrality debate is so bogged down by partisan politics that it may require the conflict resolution skills of Richard Holbrooke.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
